Latest Cache River National Wildlife Refuge Stories

By Meredith Byers, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio Jul. 27--MONROE -- North America's first international wildlife refuge has expanded with the inclusion of Plum Creek, 126 acres in Monroe County. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, U.S. Reps.

Wildlife biologists are searching one of the nation's most primitive swamps for the ivory-billed woodpecker, which was believed extinct since 1944 until one was reported in an Arkansas swamp last year.

Each morning, Sara Barker wakes before dawn, covers herself with camouflage and makes sure she has her compass before heading into the eastern Arkansas swamps. Her quest: the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.

By Deborah Zabarenko BAYOU de VIEW, Arkansas (Reuters) - Among ancient cypress
and tupelo trees, bird experts and wildlife officials searched
high and low on Tuesday for the elusive ivory-billed
woodpecker, peering first into big messy holes in the ground
and up at towering limbs.

An expert on the ivory-billed woodpecker is questioning evidence that purportedly shows the rare bird, once thought to be extinct, in the swamps of southeast Arkansas.

Word of the Day

pawl

A pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (e.g. on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction.